Michael Patrick MacDonald’s book was fantastic. All Souls was a moving, exciting, and revealing book about the life of an average South Boston family growing up in the white, Irish Catholic Old Colony housing projects. There is a huge focus on the crimes, drugs, and violence that occurred within MacDonald’s neighborhood around the time of the Boston busing riots. MacDonald tells us about his brothers and sisters. Many of whom were victimized by crime, drugs, murder, and suicide. He also goes into detail about his strong willed mother who somehow found a way to raise ten kids, while at the same time dealing with abusive relationships, and living in the neighborhood with the highest concentration of white poverty in America. All Souls has a large focus on Whitey Bulger as well. In the book, it is revealed how Bulger was a big time gangster, FBI informant, and drug lord, who brought about the deaths of hundreds of young people due to murder, suicides, and drug related deaths. Even through all of this tragedy and despair, Michael Patrick MacDonald finds a way to show us how truly proud and loyal he is to be from Southie. Despite suffering first hand from the crimes, heartbreaks, and calamities of Whitey Bulger, Michael still feels that South Boston was the “best place in the world.” He believes that the best elements of Southie outweighed the worst, and is truly happy to have grown up there.

It is great to read about the neighborhoods of South Boston from Macdonald as opposed to other sources. Michael lived through the worst, and is telling the story in a completely honest way. Nothing is used to spice up the story, no exaggerations, and there is nothing Hollywood about it. Unlike movies that try to depict the neighborhood, I feel like I can completely trust the book to show me the real picture of life in South Boston. It is like the book is something from a history book. The facts of the story were incredibly depressing. Michael’s childhood sounds terrible due to...

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...﻿1. ALLSOULS' DAY- November 2 observed in some Christian churches as a day of prayer for the souls of the faithful departed
2. 1 November – Day of the leaders of the Bulgarian national revival
3. November 1 is called November Day (Lá Samhna) in Celtic tradition and is thus named in the Irish Calendar, where the month is called Mí na Samhna.
4. In the Roman Catholic calendar, November 2 is AllSouls Day. It is known in Mexico as el Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), and the whole month of November is especially dedicated to praying for the dead
5. AllSouls’ Day is a day of alms giving and prayers for the dead.
6. All Saints' Day is a celebration of all Christian saints, particularly those who have no special feast days of their own, in many Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant churches.
7. Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de Muertos) is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and around the world in other cultures.
8. Undas is the Philippines' celebration of the All Saints Day and the AllSouls Day.
9. puntod and lapida grave and memorial stone with inscriptions
10. atang (food and drink offering for the souls
11. Undas is a much honored religious tradition in the country which explains why it is included in our list of non-working holidays.
12. All...

...In many countries, All Saints Day is a solemn holiday set aside to remember the dead, in the Philippines the holiday is a day of festivities. November 1 marks the beginning of the Filipino "Araw ng mga Patay," the celebration of the Day of the Dead. The celebration continues through the next day, AllSouls Day. The two days are traditional Catholic holidays set aside to commemorate all the saints and the souls of the dead. While the holiday remains an important religious day for the Catholic Church, some of the more secular aspects are celebrated by the non-Catholic community. Though the people in the Philippines celebrate and honor the dead joyously, All Saints Day is still a respectful day for commemorating ancestors.
During the Araw ng mga Patay Filipinos remember their dead, clean the graves, and decorate them with flowers. While the purpose is somber, the effect is a picnic, full of merrymaking and laughter. Everyone goes to the cemetery, and some even stay overnight.
When the first day of November comes me and my family went in the cemetery at 8 in the morning to visit the tomb of my grandmother, grandfather & my aunt.
We stayed there until the day ends. We are very happy because we shared happy moments together with our Lolo, Lola and Tita even though they are passed away.
And now even if not the day of the dead we are still praying and remembering them...

...A national bestseller, AllSouls: A Family Story From Southie (Beacon Press, September 1999), won an American Book Award and a New England Literary Lights Award, as well as the Myers Outstanding Book Award administered by the Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America.
With AllSouls MacDonald writes a gripping memoir about his life growing up in the Old Colony housing projects in South Boston, a predominantly white Irish Catholic neighborhood. He writes about the crime, drugs and violence in his neighborhood in the years following Boston's busing riots, and of his brothers and sisters, many of whom fell prey to drugs, crime, and suicide. The book introduces his mother, Helen King (Ma), a feisty woman who raised her ten children while living in the projects. (An eleventh child died in infancy.) Additionally, the book often mentions Whitey Bulger, a gangster and FBI informant in Southie, who brought the drug trade into the neighborhood, contributing to the deaths of hundreds of young people due to suicides, murders, and overdoses. Despite all that is bad, MacDonald writes about how proud and loyal the residents were to be from Southie, excluding MacDonald himself who admits in the book he told those he met that he was from Dorchester and how some of the best elements of the neighborhood have been wiped out along with the worst due to gentrification. Michael Patrick...

...AllSouls: A Family Story From Southie
By Micheal Patrick MacDonald. (Ballentine Books under The Random House Publishing Corporation, 1999, 266pp. $14.00)
Michael Patrick MacDonald saw hatred animated on a Friday in the early days of October. Some people were reading the newspaper in brightly lit kitchens. Some children were coloring with brightly hued crayons. Some fathers were getting into cars in front of their beautiful homes. But there were no crayons, bright kitchens, or fathers in nice cars on Dorchester Street in Southie that day. Only the cruelest manifestation of blind hatred. Michael Patrick MacDonald was an innocent child when he stood only feet away from a black man who was having the life literally beaten from his body, one kick, one punch, one rock at a time.
"I remember the man's tears clearing paths in the blood on his face."
Michael Patrick MacDonald lived a frightening life. To turn the book over and read the back cover, one might picture a decidedly idyllic existence. At times frightening, at times splendid, but always full of love. But to open this book is to open the door to Southie's ugly truth, to MacDonald's ugly truth, to take it in for all it's worth, to draw our own conclusions. One boy's hell is another boy's playground. Ma MacDonald is a palm tree in a hurricane, bending and swaying in the violent winds of Southie's interior, even as things are flying at her head, she crouches down to...

...AllSouls
In the book AllSouls Michael McDonald faces a lot of life situation that are very difficult to handle. MIchael went through a lot as kid that no kid should ever experience. The McDonald family moved into the Old Colony Projects from the Columbia Point t. The McDonald's were not wealthy they didn't have the nicest house. Their neighborhood wasn't the safest place ever , there was a lot of violence in the projects. Projects Michael was the youngest out of 7 before Seamus and Stephen were born. Michael went through 4 deaths in his family 4 of his older brother went through traumatizing deaths that impacted Michael life tremendously. Throughout the book Michael experiences the traumatizing deaths of his 4 older brothers. Each death has changed Michael’s life dramatically. Michael’s older brother Davey killed himself in August 1979 and the whole family had a very difficult time dealing with the death. Then in 1984, Frankie was involved in a robbery. During the Robbery he got shot and he needed medical attention. Instead his friends didn't want to get caught and put a bag over his head and hid him under the seat. Frankie died and he could have survived if he went to the doctors. Michaels family all looked up to Frankie. He was doing good, he wasn't involved in drugs and he was one of the kids that were going somewhere in life. Kevin died in 1985, he was serving time in jail and supposedly he killed...

...﻿ALLSOULS REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Michael Patrick Macdonald was bought up in Southie’s Old Colony housing project. He describes the way this world felt to the troubled yet keenly gifted observer he was even as a child. With radiant insight, he opens up a contradictory world, where residents are troubled by gangs and crime but refuse to admit any problems, remaining fiercely loyal to their community. MacDonald also introduces us to the unforgettable people who inhabit this proud neighborhood. We meet his mother, Ma MacDonald, an accordion-playing, spiked-heel-wearing, indomitable mother to all; Whitey Bulger, the lord of Southie, gangster and father figure, protector and punisher; and Michael's beloved siblings, nearly half of whom were lost forever to drugs, murder, or suicide. By turns explosive and touching, AllSouls ultimately shares a powerful message of hope, renewal, and redemption. Macdonald eloquently describes us to us the importance of family, friends, race and everything in between. ''AllSouls is the written equivalent of an Irish wake where revelers dance and sing the dead person's praises.” Michael Patrick MacDonald was in third grade when the riots broke out. “The man ran from the crowd as people threw rocks at him,'' MacDonald writes. ''He was trying...

...13 February 2014
Critic Frank Ochieng mentioned, “Soul Food is an appetizing dish...an ethnic dramedy
served with spicy attitude” (Ochieng). It is a warm­hearted, stupendous, touching, and
sensational family film. ​
Soul Food ​
tells a story from the point of view of an eleven year old boy
named Ahmad acted by Brandon Hammond. The film is about an African­American family,
which has eaten soul food dinner as a family every Sunday for over forty years. Throughout this
film learning life lessons and how significant it is to cherish family is important. This is a
comedy, romance film with a whole lot of drama. Big Mama Joe, acted by Irma P. Hall, is one of
the main characters in this film, she’s the rock that keeps the Joseph family together; as she said
in this quote, “One finger pointing the blame, don’t make no impact, but you ball up all em’
fingers into a mighty fist, and you can strike a mighty blow, and this family has got to be that
fist.” (Irma P. Hall). George Tillman Jr the writer and director based this film on his own life
experience of a “close­knit family” (Tillman). ​
Soul Food ​
argues that not all African­American
films have to be about negative situations, they can have a positive perspective, and be about the
importance of cherishing families.
Soul Food ​
is a film that wants’ to show the audience the importance of cherishing family. ...

...used popular things like music, fashion, and technology to show that their car is better than all the rest. The commercial showcases many features that appeal to several different age groups.
The commercial starts out with two hamsters walking out of a building to meet another hamster. They are all dressed in loose fit clothing, basketball jerseys, and sweatshirts. It jumps to a scene of city buildings and a street sign saying Hamsterdam one way. In the background there is music playing the song: “The Choice is yours” by the Black Sheep. One of the hamsters starts rapping the lyrics of the song in a music store like what you would see in a rap music video.
The three hamsters start walking and rapping through the city streets and pass a few hamster-wheels, with hamsters on them, not going anywhere. As they are walking along the streets they come across the Kia Soul. The hamster that was rapping continues to sing, as the songs chorus is saying, “You can deal with this or you can deal with that…” the rapping hamster points to the Kia Soul and then to some toaster passing by with other hamsters driving it. Then the hamsters get into the Soul and start driving it through the city streets.
As the Soul rolls along, they pass by a barber shop with two lady hamsters standing outside of it. The lady hamsters stop and stare at the car, lowering their sunglasses to get a better look at the...